The NFL has had many of its carriage deals come up for renewal in the past couple of years. It has already awarded rights to CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and DIRECTV. Now there’s one more package that’s left up for grabs – NFL Sunday Ticket. It’ll be expiring with DIRECTV following this upcoming season.
As of last week, we had heard that both Apple and Amazon were in the chat to acquire the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. With Apple being the leader. But over the weekend, a report from the New York Times, showed that Google has interest and has entered the chat. That means that we could see the NFL Sunday Ticket available on YouTube, or more likely, bundled with YouTube TV.
This is good news for the NFL, as the three largest and most profitable companies are looking to get their hands on Sunday Ticket. That means that the NFL could ask for even more money for this package.
Apple has quietly moved into sports for TV+
After announcing Friday Night Baseball for TV+ a few months ago, Apple then signed a 10-year deal with Major League Soccer. Obviously, not a huge deal for Apple, since Soccer is one of the smaller leagues in the US. But if they are able to get the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, that could make TV+ a real big competitor for live streaming sports.
When it comes to Google, it would make sense that they’d want to get in on the NFL Sunday Ticket. After having lost the Bally Sports regional sports networks a few years ago (and those aren’t coming back), they need some sports to make their service a better value. And the NFL Sunday Ticket could do just that. But the real question here is whether it would be included in the $65/month fee, or be an add-on.
The NFL has had many of its carriage deals come up for renewal in the past couple of years. It has already awarded rights to CBS, FOX, NBC, ABC, ESPN, Amazon Prime Video and DIRECTV. Now there’s one more package that’s left up for grabs – NFL Sunday Ticket. It’ll be expiring with DIRECTV following this upcoming season.
As of last week, we had heard that both Apple and Amazon were in the chat to acquire the rights to NFL Sunday Ticket. With Apple being the leader. But over the weekend, a report from the New York Times, showed that Google has interest and has entered the chat. That means that we could see the NFL Sunday Ticket available on YouTube, or more likely, bundled with YouTube TV.
This is good news for the NFL, as the three largest and most profitable companies are looking to get their hands on Sunday Ticket. That means that the NFL could ask for even more money for this package.
Apple has quietly moved into sports for TV+
After announcing Friday Night Baseball for TV+ a few months ago, Apple then signed a 10-year deal with Major League Soccer. Obviously, not a huge deal for Apple, since Soccer is one of the smaller leagues in the US. But if they are able to get the NFL Sunday Ticket rights, that could make TV+ a real big competitor for live streaming sports.
When it comes to Google, it would make sense that they’d want to get in on the NFL Sunday Ticket. After having lost the Bally Sports regional sports networks a few years ago (and those aren’t coming back), they need some sports to make their service a better value. And the NFL Sunday Ticket could do just that. But the real question here is whether it would be included in the $65/month fee, or be an add-on.